Introduction to cPanel

The cPanel is your administrative panel, and your new best friend! Use it to set up your email accounts, view your site usage statistics, manage your databases and lots of other neat things. Connecting to your cPanel is easy, you can do it straight from your web browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, or any other modern browser). Simply enter your domain name followed by "/cpanel" in your address bar, i.e. http://www.yourdomain.com/cpanel. When prompted, enter your username and password, and you're in!

Those who do not have a domain name registered can still access the cPanel by using the host address or static IP address: https://[host_name_here]/cpanel. Consult your welcome email to find out your host name.

The first thing you'll want to do is to set up your email account so that you can start accepting emails using an email address like you@yourdomain.com.

Setting up your email account

Each hosting account allows you to use one or more email accounts. To create a new email account, simply log into your cPanel, click on "Add/Remove Email Accounts", fill out the information requested by the form and click "Create Account".

You will now be able to access your emails using a web interface (similar to Hotmail). To do so, enter the following URL in your browser's address bar: https://www.yourdomain.com:2096 (replace yourdomain.com with your own domain name). Enter your authentication credentials when prompted (make sure to enter your full email address as a username). You will then be able to choose one of two email interfaces to use: SquirrelMail and Horde. Feel free to try them both out and pick the one you like best.

If you wish to use your email directly from your email applications such as Outlook or Apple Mail, you will need to use the following information:

  • Email: whichever email you just created in your cPanel.
  • POP: mail.yourdomain.com
  • SMTP: mail.yourdomain.com
  • Username: youremail@yourdomain.com
  • Password: the password you have selected.

Please note: some Internet Service Providers (ISPs) will block your outgoing emails unless you use their own SMTP servers. This is the case with Videotron and Sympatico, for example. To check whether or not you have this problem, try sending out a test email from the account you have just created to any other email account you may have (or use your application's integrated test email feature, if it exists). If the email is received at the other email address then everything is OK and this problem does not affect you. However, if within a few hours you still have not received the email, it means your ISP is indeed blocking your outgoing emails. To fix this, you'll need to enter your ISP's own SMTP server in your email configuration. You should be able to find this information in the documentation your ISP has sent you when you first opened an account with them. If you can't find it, give them a call and they'll give you that information. Once entered, try sending another email and confirm that it is properly received. If you are still having problems, contact us.

Viewing your website statistics

With your cPanel account, you can see detailed information about your site usage. You can find out how many people are visiting your site, what geographical location they come from, the time of day they access your site, and more! To view your website statistics, simply log on to your cPanel, and locate the "Analysis and Log Files" section. You will have the choice between two statistics-gathering programs, AWstats and Webalizer. Both are excellent applications that will reveal useful information about your visitors.

Please note that the statistics displayed from these programs are not generated in real-time. They are generated through automated scripts, which are themselves executed roughly once a day. It is normal that once in a while you'll only be able to see statistics from 2 or 3 days ago. Check back in a couple of days and the statistics should be updated. If your statistics have not been updated in over 5 days, please contact us and let us know of the problem.

 

Many more things are possible with the cPanel. Explore it, and also consult the following articles: A First Look at the cPanel and cPanel Tutorials.

Article ID: #HC5092

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